Gambling Trends,
Patterns and The Holy Grail

Much work needs to be done and
eyes must remain peeled at all times but, when a gambling
pattern emerges it is time to strike, using flexibility and
timing to make the hit.

Venture
into a typical gambling discussion group or forum on the
internet and you'll find hordes of gamblers espousing the
magical properties of trends and complex patterns of numbers and
results in games of chance which, if sufficiently appreciated
and properly acted upon, will reward the faithful with bags of
cash.

These numbers-oriented gamblers are
poles apart when it comes to their betting strategy in response
to distinct patterns. The Believers will react to three
consecutive reds in roulette by interpreting this run as a wave
upon which they believe they can jump and subsequently surf
their way to profit by betting on red coming up a fourth
consecutive time. Non-Believers take the opposing position and
bet against red on the next spin in the belief that all such
runs come to an end sooner rather than later and black,
therefore, will be next up.

Ironically, while sitting in completely
opposing camps, both players' strategies are nonetheless
fundamentally linked in that each takes a specific stance
regarding the relevance of the trend or pattern itself.

Alas, at the risk of sounding like I
need converting by the trend lobby, I should point out I believe
only that each such result is purely random. And I recommend the
reader approach roulette and other games of chance in the same
way. This is true of traditional and online casinos, but
especially in the latter case, where random number generators
are in operation.

With some gamblers 'random' is almost a
dirty word that threatens to undermine the work and energy put
into going through charts, spreadsheets and related systems.
Accepting the true nature of the randomness of casino games of
chance might make spending money on 'how to win' books seem
rather futile (or even foolish), but we might just have to
acquiesce to the hard fact that the casino's edge is based
precisely on any given likelihood being completely random over
time. Perhaps we are wrong, and there is a Pattern super being
out there somewhere doing favors for those in the know, but for
the time being we must concur with the casinos, who tip the
scales in roulette (if you will) in their favor by craftily
adding a green zero or two to the 36 red and black numbers, thus
serving to occasionally add insult to injury in the case of both
aforementioned groups of Believers and Non-Believers.

To say that random means exactly what it
says on the tin - that each new 'result' is completely
independent of the last - is a simplistic way to describe this
aspect of gambling, yet it is an easy statement to make if we
don't subscribe to the theory that a trend or pattern has an
influence on what will happen next. Feel free to gamble as you
please, but using past events to help predict future events in
games of chance becomes a serious commitment when money is
involved.

You will notice when playing online
roulette, for instance, that the results of previous 'spins' are
posted on the screen. What are we supposed to do with this
information, I wonder, if not use it to steer us in the right
direction when making the next bet? I would suggest that
following these past numbers should be for nothing more than
adding to the entertainment, serving only to demonstrate the
very unpredictability of random events. Eventually a pattern is
sure to appear, of course, followed by another pattern, then
another, then another...